From Best Friend To Fiancé (Savannah and Roman) novel Chapter 238

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**TITLE: Dreams Folding Into Broken Time**
**Chapter 238**

He intertwined his fingers, pressing them against his lips as if seeking solace in prayer. His gaze drifted into the distance, lost in thoughts that seemed to pull him away from the moment. When he finally spoke again, his voice was laced with an intensity that sent shivers down my spine.

“Why do you think Ryan unknowingly fathered a child with your sister while he had a wife who could give him one?”

I furrowed my brows, confusion swirling in my mind. “Because his wife was infertile, wasn’t she?” My voice held a note of certainty, but doubt crept in as I searched his expression.

He shook his head, a slow, deliberate movement that felt like a pendulum counting down to a revelation. “No, Savannah. She’s not infertile. Ryan’s the one pulling the strings.”

My heart raced, a sudden surge of adrenaline coursing through me. “What are you talking about? Ryan’s infertile?” The words tasted bitter on my tongue.

“No.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. “Charlotte goes to the spa that Ryan picked for her every week. But she has no clue that it’s not a spa at all. They’re sedating her, injecting her with something—some kind of contraceptive. I don’t have all the details yet, but I know it’s intentional. He’s been keeping her from ever getting pregnant. And he does it because he’s terrified.”

I blinked, trying to process the weight of his words. “Terrified of what?”

Roman’s eyes locked onto mine, a storm of emotions swirling within them. “Of what happens to the women who carry a Blackwood child.”

A chill enveloped me, my blood turning to ice at the implication of his statement.

“Before,” he continued, his voice trembling slightly, “I thought Ryan had a vasectomy, or that he was simply the first Blackwood who shot blanks. That was before Emily. He realized it was too dangerous—that he wouldn’t gamble with Charlotte’s life. So he acted swiftly. And it worked. But then Alyssa got pregnant. He told me she was supposed to terminate it immediately.” He paused, the gravity of the moment hanging heavily in the air.

“Emily was a surprise,” he whispered, his voice barely above a breath. “A shocking one. The first Blackwood baby to survive since the curse began with our own mother.”

The silence that enveloped us felt suffocating, a thick fog of unspoken fears and revelations.

Curse.

That word reverberated in my mind, deep and resounding, like thunder rumbling ominously across a tempestuous sky.

“Roman…” I said softly, my heart pounding as I approached the precipice of understanding. “What do you mean—curse?”

He turned to me, his gaze piercing through the veil of my ignorance, and the grief etched in his features made me instinctively take a step back.

“Our mother died giving birth. She was too old, her heart too frail. I was already in college then, and Reese had just finished high school. You can see why it was never meant to happen. But my father called it a miracle. My mom was overjoyed. But it didn’t end well,” he said bitterly, the pain of that memory etched into every syllable. “Every Blackwood woman who has carried a child since has either lost the baby or died with it. My sisters, Dahlia, our aunts, and before them, others we dare not even mention. We always celebrate. We have a grand feast, and then tragedy strikes right after. It’s as if our blood rejects the very idea of life continuing. Like something in this family was never meant to thrive.”